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EEOC: High school diploma requirement might violate Americans with Disabilities Act
I guess I show my age. When I was a lad it was still an era when having a high school diploma meant that a person possessed a particular set of skills that were generally useful to employers. That, in fact, was the main point of having a high school diploma, and employers were expected give preference to people with high school diplomas because they had more versatile and usefull skillsets. Whether or not the job directly required a high school diploma was irrelevant - it was recognized that possessing the diploma carried with it a set of skills.
Of course smart employers have always known that the paper doesn't confer the knowledge, so you can often find capable and skilled people lacking the paper credentials. And they have made, and continue to make efforts to do so.
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I guess this is a late lament, though, because the value of diploma disappeared when schools started issuing diplomas pretty much as a reward for not dropping out (of course that meant the schools could continue to receive their state education aid because the student was in school even though the student had long ago stopped learning anything). Sometimes these days I wonder how much value a college diploma has, since I have seen too many college grads who fell far short of the skill level I learned to associate with a college degree.
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Maybe I expect too much. Perhaps today's college typical college diploma is the equivalent of our grandparents' high school diplomas.
Employers are facing more uncertainty in the wake of a letter from the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission warning them that requiring a high school diploma from a job applicant might violate the Americans with Disabilities Act.
The development also has some wondering if the agency’s advice will result in an educational backlash by creating less of an incentive for some high-school students to graduate.
The “informal discussion letter” from the EEOC said an employer’s requirement of a high school diploma, long a standard criteria for screening potential employees, must be “job-related for the position in question and consistent with business necessity.” The letter was posted on the commission’s website on Dec. 2.
The development also has some wondering if the agency’s advice will result in an educational backlash by creating less of an incentive for some high-school students to graduate.
The “informal discussion letter” from the EEOC said an employer’s requirement of a high school diploma, long a standard criteria for screening potential employees, must be “job-related for the position in question and consistent with business necessity.” The letter was posted on the commission’s website on Dec. 2.
Of course smart employers have always known that the paper doesn't confer the knowledge, so you can often find capable and skilled people lacking the paper credentials. And they have made, and continue to make efforts to do so.
******
I guess this is a late lament, though, because the value of diploma disappeared when schools started issuing diplomas pretty much as a reward for not dropping out (of course that meant the schools could continue to receive their state education aid because the student was in school even though the student had long ago stopped learning anything). Sometimes these days I wonder how much value a college diploma has, since I have seen too many college grads who fell far short of the skill level I learned to associate with a college degree.
***
Maybe I expect too much. Perhaps today's college typical college diploma is the equivalent of our grandparents' high school diplomas.
The doctorates on dad's side are a lot more sane, but dad's side has the philosophy that most degrees basically demonstrate you can put up with a lot of stupid rules and are willing to play the game. 
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